In early May, women from the village of Maradisi, in southeast Georgia, gained wide renown. Naira Paksadze, together with other women, hoed their neighbour’s potato field in order to save the family’s potato harvest. At the time, every member of the family was being treated for COVID-19 in hospital, while weeds were growing wild throughout their potato field – their only source of income.

Lela Setouri and Mzia Jabishvili met in November 2019 during their vocational training courses in the culinary arts. Both were from Akhmeta (in eastern Georgia’s Kakheti region), which helped bring them closer together.

The six-day “How to Start a Business” course taught women in Georgia how to generate start-up ideas and validate them, as well as how to build the right team and create a product. They also developed strategic and innovative thinking, and learned about planning and product distribution, financial documentation, business modeling and investment proposals.

In Georgia, the agritourism sector is mostly female-dominated. Despite its considerable potential to attract tourists to Georgia and improve life in rural communities, the sector lacks regulatory frameworks, hindering its development.

Before the war in 2008, the population residing near the conflict zone in Shida Kartli used to get drinking water from the village of Vanati. After the war,Vanati happened to be located beyond the dividing line

I first came across renewable energies some eight years ago. The Rural Communities Development Agency, where I work now, is one of the organizations that has specialized in the utilization of solar energy for households in rural areas of Georgia.

What business opportunities do IDP women have in Georgia’s regions? How can they start up an enterprise with little finances? These are some of the issues that IDP women discussed during a training entitled “Supporting Sustainable Entrepreneurship for IDP Women”.

In Ingiri, close to the city of Zugdidi, lies one of the Community Resource Centres that has been established with the support of UN Women’s partner organization, TASO Foundation, as part of a project funded by the European Union.

UN Women’s programme team led by Country Representative Erika Kvapilova held a series of meetings with volunteers and representatives of the local Community Funds (CF) Nefa and Egrisi in the villages of Zugdidi Municipality in Samegrelo Region on 5 and 6 July 2016. With the support of UN Women and Taso Foundation, the CFs were established in 2013 by local women, the majority of whom are internally displaced persons from Abkhazia, Georgia.

Rural households that are headed by women, suffer more from poverty than those headed by men. Social and cultural barriers, a lack of kindergartens, as well as the burden of unpaid housework, prevent women from developing their skills and from generating an income.